


Dilemma

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Egg Laying, Eggpreg, M/M, Mpreg, Oviposition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 23:18:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1567631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You didn't realize how much weight he'd actually gained. Of course, you know, it really was kind of obvious, with it all centering in a big awkward lump in his belly, but you didn't pay it much attention.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dilemma

**Author's Note:**

> this is probably full of typos and ill fix them later

You didn't realize how much weight he'd actually gained. Of course, you know, it really was kind of obvious, with it all centering in a big awkward lump in his belly, but you didn't pay it much attention. You thought it was kind of weird, yeah, and it was a little spooky to touch it and have it be so firm and perfectly round. You also swear, or no you probably dreamt it, but you know or you think you remember laying with him, with his shirt removed, and seeing a little tiny bump move beneath his taut skin. 

But you were probably imagining things, because he really wasn't all that big. He was just always so worried about the appearance of his body, like always. It really hadn't been that noticeable. He'd put on some weight, yeah, and he had had to stop wearing his jeans because the clasp would no longer close, but it didn't seem like a problem. Not a huge problem, anyway. Not one deserving medical attention.

So he'd gone up a couple of pants sizes. That was a thing that happened sometimes. So it had been over the course of only three months. When you'd asked all those times, he assured you it was fine and that oh god oh god, he's fat, he's unattractive, you think he's ugly, don't you, oh no oh no, oh shit, you'll never look at him again, he's gross, he's trash, his body is worthless mutant garbage, he's-

You never knew what to think or how to talk about it and, God, he's been just so ridiculous lately. It was hard to even talk to him and get a straight response that wasn't full of shaking hands and ripping fangs. So, you decided it'd be fine. He was just putting on a little weight. It wasn't all that noticeable, really. He just had grown a bit of a belly.

A bit of a somewhat considerably large belly.

That eventually prevented him from walking properly.

And recently began to inhibit his ability to stand. 

And grew out of every shirt he owned until he was left to recycle the same three enormous grey t-shirts over and over and over again, which he would grow too exhausted to be bothered to wash.

So you watched him, over the course of an alarmingly short three months, swell considerably in the abdomen and lose the energy to take care of himself. You'd have to stop yourself from staring at the way the fabric would slowly, over weeks, grow tighter around his midsection; at the stretching of cloth and wrinkles over the increasing prominence of his stomach, until he finally condemned himself to shirts so large that the sleeves reached past his elbows and the folds draped loosely over his hugely swollen belly. 

You told Kanaya and she's worried too, and everyone who's seen him immediately starts whispering about parasites or an intestinal tumor or a severe digestive malfunction or nervously giggling about how he looks more than nine months pregnant. He notices it easily, and snaps at it sharply. 

He get's so angry that even you don't wish to be around him most of the time. 

You wish you'd gotten him to a doctor.

You wish you knew what to do, now that he's on the bathroom floor in agony and you wish you'd known how to convince him to go to a doctor. Something in him has ruptured, your mind tells you immediately. Whatever is deforming him so has gotten too big and it's ruptured his intestines or his stomach or some other organ. It's just gotten too big and his body couldn't handle it and he's broken and god, oh god, what the fuck do you do?

He just called you and said he needed you quick and god, you're not a doctor! You don't know what the fuck to do!

"Okay, okay, hey, okay, I... Something's fucked up, okay? Something's really fucked up," he says. He's clutching his belly and rubbing it and you can tell that it hurts and that he just wants desperately to sooth it. "It's really really really fucked up, Strider."

He's sweating and his cheeks are magenta and cherries. His eyes are leaking little beads of red. 

"It's really fucked up. It's really really really fucked up. It's so fucked up. Something's really really fucked up, Strider. Something is really really fucked up." 

You're almost afraid to touch him. You are irrationally terrified of whatever horror has become of his abdomen. You slowly sit down next to him, though, as he is crammed between the bathtub and the sink, and lean over to encircle his shoulders as tight as you can. You kiss his face gently. 

"I'm gonna take you to the hospital, okay? Like, I think your stomach exploded or something, I think, I have no idea, something happened, I don't know. I'm gonna take you to the hospital. You need to see a doctor," you say. 

You glance down at his stomach, which has been left uncovered as he had been examining it carefully. It is its normal grey, but slightly flushed and streaked with dark purple stretch marks and god, oh god, you can, you can, you, you, you choke a little bit and your skin squirms around your bones and you look away from his stomach. There are things moving, vaguely. Little lumps slipping around inside him.

He is tired and pale and his lips are cracked open like bleeding canyons. His hair is filthy. His skin is greasy. He is a disgusting mess gleaming under a fluorescent hum. His breaths come in hitches that move through his whole body and make his ribs twitch, as though his lungs are no longer entirely sure what to do with his inhales. 

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not going to a hospital. You're not taking me to a fucking hospital. I don't go to shitty medical establishments so that assholes can poke at me for a few hours and then say, 'hey, the guy's blood isn't worth our time,' and then let me die the same way I would've here, except, except..." His breathing doesn't want to obey him enough to let him talk for a second. "You'll have to pay for it and I'll have had to have them poking at my sh-shitty-ass fucking organs." 

Your eyes fall into a glare and a flare rises skyward through your chest. You take a deep breath.

"Dude, they're not going to kill you, okay? This is a huge fucking issue and needs to be taken care of like, literally now, and you're going to get in my car and I'm going to take you to the hospital." 

"Uh, no. No no no. No. That's not what's happening here," he says, sitting up slightly. "That is a precise example of exactly what we're not doing." 

He needs someone to be calm and rational for him, you know, as usual. Except that right now, you can not find the patience to keep calm about this. You need him to just listen to you. Why won't he just listen to you?

"Dude, you need someone to help you who isn't me. You have like a a massive parasite or something. I don't even know why you called me. You need a fucking doctor," you insist. 

Karkat doesn't like not having control. He is already out of control of his body. Karkat doesn't like being told what to do. You are probably back tracking by being so insistent. You have to figure out how to be calm about this. You inhale and exhale and it sounds like a sigh.

"I don't know why I called you. I don't fucking know," he says, his voice shaking with a shrill, alien, chirr. "I just wanted you here. I don't fucking know. I don't know." 

You are probably not making him feel safe by panicking. You take another deep breath and let it out. 

"Alright, okay, okay, look, just, breathe, okay? You'll get out of this. I won't make you go to the hospital, okay? Take a deep breath, okay?" you say. You rub his knee, which is the only part of him that you can reach now that he has jammed himself further back between the sink and tub. 

His eyes are wide and distant and his shoulders are a stiff armored collar. His pupils are so dilated that they're taking up most of his eyes. He breathes shallow and through his jagged teeth. 

"Take a deep breath, alright? Take a deep breath. Please," you say. 

He takes one sharp inhale, and lets it out, and then takes one thats a little longer, and lets it out a little slower. He breathes in again and lets it out. He tries to put himself into some state of pseudo-calm. 

"Okay, just breathe. You're alright."

You watch his swollen abdomen rise and fall with his breaths. You stare in disturbed curiosity, and incredible worry, at the little shallow bumps moving about beneath his skin. You wonder how this happened. You wonder if you're dreaming. 

You are scared to lose him, but you also have no part of your brain calculating that as a genuine possibility. You think he's in danger of dying, but you also think that in the end, at the last second, no matter how much he's bled or hurt or screamed, in the end he'll just have to sleep it off and he'll be alright. There is no way for him to die. 

"You're alright," you say. "Just breathe."

He breathes, slower and with more control. His face is coated in a thin veil of sweat. His hair sticks to his forehead. He becomes more and more still, though, letting his lungs fill with soothing and much needed oxygen. 

You rub his knee, over and over again. 

He slowly slumps further against the wall. 

"It's okay. You're alright." 

He breathes and that's all you need him to do. That's all you want him to do. You need him to be calm and okay and alright. He'll be alright. You just want him to breathe. 

And then maybe once he's mastered that, you'll ask him some more questions. 

"Shhhh...."

His eyes are ringed with bruises and his cheeks are flushed violently.

"You're okay." 

He breathes. He's fine. He's breathing. He's fine. He'll be fine. You can call Kanaya, get her to help him, to help you both. She'll be able to help. She'll know how to convince him to go to a doctor. Or maybe she'll know what to do. 

Everything will be fine. Everything will be just fine. 

He inhales. You rub his knee. He's fine. He exhales. He is currently safe. No one is going to hurt him. He's right here with you. 

He's fine. He's fine. 

His mouth hangs open for his inhales, dry lips framing yellowed crooked fangs.

"Shhhh..."

And then he sits up abruptly, hands grabbing for his stomach and clutching it tightly as his breath is cut short by a hiss through his teeth. He groans and whines and holds his distended belly. 

"Shit, shit, shit, ohh, fuck. Oh fuck," he says before leaning back. "Oh god, I don't- I don't- I don't-"

You keep rubbing his knee. 

"Okay, it's okay. Keep breathing, okay? Just focus on breathing. I'm going to call Kanaya, alright?" you say, as calmly as you possibly can. 

His head leans back against the tiles of the wall. His eyes close and he tries his best to breathe. He moans again, though. 

"Auuhhh...."

You don't know what to do. You wish he'd go to the hospital. You wished he'd called someone who knows what to do. You wish he'd called someone who can help him. 

"No, don't. Don't call her. Don't. I...." His face screws up in a pained wince and it cuts off his words. "Oh god, oh god, I don't know what's happening oh god oh god oh god, oh my fucking god. Oh my fucking god. Oh god, something, I don't know, oh god..." 

His breathing is erratic again, coming out in confused little wisps. 

His face screws up and his teeth clench together and he growls against the pain. You notice that he's been gripping the shower curtain the whole time, only as he pulls it tighter into his other hand. He knots the nylon up in his fists and pulls it into his mouth and bites down hard. 

There is a long, rough, groan from his throat that is mixed with low and scared little chirps. 

He is stiff and flushed and you don't know what to do. You don't know how to talk him through whatever is happening to him because you don't know what's happening to him. 

He relaxes for a second and opens his eyes to stare through a corner in the wall with directionless horror. His pupils are slits now. 

He pushes himself back into the wall, sitting himself up further, scrambling into the new position like a cornered animal; claws scraping on the tiles. 

Then he bites back down on the shower curtain, which is the only thing muffling his screech. 

He says something shortly after, but you can't understand it through the curtain. 

"What?" 

He doesn't try to repeat himself. He pushes himself further up into the corner until he is sitting up on his feet. The shower curtain rings rattle against the bar on which they're hung. His eyes stare wildly down at his stomach as his whole body heaves with his breaths.

You don't know what to do. You don't know if there's anything you should do. You don't know what he's doing.

He releases his grip on the shower curtain for just a second to pull at the waistband of his boxers.

"Okay, okay, okay, try to breathe again, okay? Try to breathe. Try to take a deep breath. It's going to be alright. You're gonna be fine. You're safe. Breathe, okay? Try to breathe," you say. 

He tries, you think. It looks like he does. He's having a hard time doing it, though.

He pulls off his boxers and they fall around his ankles. He tries to look over his belly at something. His fingers travel to his inner thigh and then his nook. It's clear he can't actually see anything with his stomach in the way. 

You, however, immediately notice what the issue is here. There is something smooth and round and dark red and dripping with pink stretching his nook out quite brutally. 

His fingers find it soon enough and your expression could only be half as horrified as his. 

"Do you want me to call Kanaya?" 

With speech not making it through the shower curtain in his teeth, he nods aggressively. "Mmhm. Mmhm. Mmhm!!"

You pull your phone out of your pocket and you don't want to risk having to waste any time waiting for her to answer a text, so you actually do call her and pull the phone up to your ear. You stand up and lean against the countertop and listen to the phone ring.

It rings and rings and Karkat groans loudly from his place on the floor.

Eventually, Kanaya picks up. 

"Hello?" her voice comes only slightly crumpled through the phone.

"Hey, Maryam, there's a mildly huge problem over here and you should probably come over here now 'cause I don't know what the fuck to do," you spit out immediately. 

There is a pause. 

"What? Dave, this is you, correct? What's going on? Where are you?" 

Karkat groans again. 

"Yeah, it's me. Dave fucking Strider. I'm at Karkat's. Can you come over here? It's kind of an emergency," you say. "I can explain better when you get here, but you really need to get over here as soon as possible."

You hear some weirder grunting from the corner. You turn a little more attention to him. You find your eyes glued to his form in simultaneous horror, confusion, and revelation. 

"I take it Karkat is in some sort of trouble, then?" she says.

"Yes," you say, staring down at him with your mouth slightly gaping.

"Dave, oh my god, Dave? Fuck, oh my god. Oh god, I don't..."

"I'll be over as soon as I can," she assures.

"Kay. Good. Thanks. Bye." you say, hastily. 

"Dave, fuck, oh my god, what the fucking hell? What the fucking fuck? What the fuck?"

"Bye," she says. 

You hang up and both you and Karkat stare at the large, wet, sphere that is now resting between his ankles.

A heavy, blinding, silence fills up the bathroom. The only noise is the subtle sound of Karkat catching his breath. Neither of you move. Quiet, begrudging, and alarmed understanding fills both of you slowly.

But, but, no. No no no. That can't be it...

The sphere is a translucent red. And you can see the shadow of something inside of it. You want to examine it closer, but also you really really don't want to know.

But...

"Vantas... did... you... just..."

"Did I what?"

"Did you, you know."

"No I don't know. I really don't fucking know. Please fill me in."

"You just. Dude, you just...."

"I just what?"

"You fucking, you laid... Did you just lay a fucking egg?" 

"No!!"

"Then what the fuck is that?"

"I don't know!!"

"What the hell, Vantas!"

"Do you think I fucking know?!"

"I have no idea!!"

"What the fuck?!"

The egg twitches on the floor. Whatever is inside of it, is alive. Very alive. 

The connection that that is the thing that you've been seeing moving around in his belly for the past couple months is alarming. The part where there is a whole lot more than one of them inside of him is even more so. 

You stare at his apparently gravid belly and realize that, from the size of this one egg (about as big as a baseball, maybe a bit smaller) and the size of his abdomen, that there are quite a lot more. This is going to be a very long night. 

You don't have a lot more time to think about it, because he is very soon clutching at his stomach again and groaning in pain.

"Okay, help me get into the ablution trap," he says. "Don't ask why, just fucking do it."

"Yeah. Okay."

You crouch down next to him and clutch his arms and try to pull him to his feet. He grunts and leans on your shoulders and holds his belly and it takes a lot of slow maneuvering just to get him balanced on his feet. You really didn't notice how big he got. You have to lean awkwardly just to hold onto him without his belly getting in the way. It still brushes up against you multiple times in the process, though. If he were human, you'd say he looks like should be having twins. 

But he's not and he's full of eggs the size of baseballs and you don't know exactly how many that would be but it's a whole fucking lot and you wish you'd payed more attention and gotten him to a fucking doctor. 

Once he's on his feet he steps into the bathtub and you hold him up the whole time. Then he steps the other foot in and then you have to help him sit down. He's five foot two and it's a wonder these eggs haven't killed him yet, he's so big. You don't know how he's been getting out of bed in the morning or walking around or making food or doing anything. 

You guess he's been hiding it pretty well with big t-shirts but you wonder how that was even possible. Maybe you're just noticing now because he's got it pulled up to his chest and he's mostly naked so you can see every contour of his shape.

Once he's laying in the tub, it occurs to you that you have no idea what to do with the egg on the floor. Maybe Kanaya will know. You really hope Kanaya is here soon. You really need to Kanaya to be here.

"Do you need anything else?" you ask. He looks uncomfortable. But then you don't know how one would be comfortable with an abdomen full of eggs. 

"I don't know," he says. 

"Do you want a pillow or something?" you ask, more specifically. 

He nods.

"Yeah, sure." 

You stand up and walk into the living room to retrieve one from the couch. You know he doesn't have any anywhere else in the apartment. You return to him laying in the tub, and place it behind his back and head.

"Okay?"

"Yeah."

You sit next to the tub and run your hands through his hair. 

"Kanaya will be here soon," you tell him. 

"Okay," he says, nodding. 

You lean on the edge of the tub with your face in your elbow, combing your fingers through his hair. 

"Just keep breathing. You'll be fine," you assure him. 

You see him consciously try to breathe like he was before. You can also see that he is trying to ignore pain. His face is tinted red. 

"You'll be okay," you say. 

His face screws up in discomfort as you say that, though. Just as you'd begun to think about and wonder how he ended up in this situation in the first place, your attention is dragged back to the current moment. 

He lets out a long breath. 

"Hold on," you say. 

You get up and go dig through the small closet outside the bathroom until you locate a washcloth. You bring it back with you and soak it with cool water. You lean down next to him and start wiping it over his forehead. 

"I think the next one is coming," he tells you in a strained voice. He cringes and stiffens up. 

"Okay," you say, dumbfounded. What else do you say? What do you even do in this situation? That egg is still on the floor. Should you put it somewhere safer? God, what do you even do? 

Keep him calm? Keep him from having too much anxiety and adding unneeded stress onto his body? You guess that'll work. If you can manage it.

You lay the cloth over his forehead. 

"Just keep breathing," you instruct. 

"I fucking am," he snaps, and then he winces and his hand finds yours and grabs it tight. 

He exhales. 

He groans and his voice scrapes out, strained, against his throat.

"I fucking hate everything," he tells you, and then there is only loud moaning as he seems to make every effort to break your hand. 

"Auuhh..."

He inhales through his teeth.

"Oh god, oh fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK!!!" He turns his head toward you so that his forehead is resting against the tub. His grip on your hand somehow tightens even more. "Ohhh God. Auuuhhghhgmmmfmgg...." 

With your free hand you rub his back. "It's okay. It's okay." 

Should you tell him to push? Do people really do that? Has he got a handle on doing that? Is that what he's doing?

"AAUUhhhhgggg.... Oh god. Okay..." he says. "Oh. Oh god. Oh god. Oh god. Oh god. Oh god. Oh god. OH GOD...."

He growls into the side of the tub and nearly breaks your hand and you wipe the back of his neck with the washcloth because you don't know what else to do. 

"Auuughhh..." 

And then he exhales in relief and goes kind of limp for a second before rolling back into the position he'd been in before. You look over the side of the tub and there is a new egg between his legs, laying in a splatter of pink fluids. 

"Okay," you say. "Sweet, alright, you're doing good, probably. I have no way to gauge that, actually, but from my point of view you seem like you're doing good. Probably. You're still conscious after pushing two eggs out of your nook so I'd say that's pretty good." 

He has a lot longer to go, though, and he already looks exhausted. You run your thumb over his knuckles and dab at his forehead with the cloth. 

He stares at you with heavy eyes as his chest rises and falls. 

"Do trolls normally lay eggs? Is this a thing I should've been aware of or looking out for or something or is this a higher category shit storm than that?" you ask. 

One of his hands rest on his chest as he again attempts to regain his ability to breathe evenly.

"No," he says flatly. "No, trolls don't fucking lay eggs. I don't know what this is or what's going on but it's brutally fucked up the ass and I just want them out of my body forever." 

Well, that's concerning.

"Do you think I'd have gone through all of this crap and have called you to come help me if I knew that I was apparently the god-forsaken host of an unknown number of eggs of questionable origin?" he says. "Why would I want my matesprit... moirail... Whatever atrocious disgrace to the proper organization of relationships it is that you are, to see me essentially take the largest dump of my life out of my nook?" 

He takes in a long shaking breath and blows it out of his mouth. His eyes go off into the corner of the room again, thought and worry momentarily dragging him out of the conversation. 

It occurs to you that he thought he was dying and that he just wanted comfort, specifically from you, and not actual medical help. 

"Well, like, yeah, actually?" you say. "Both parents are usually present while the baby is being painfully shoved out of one of their particular specialized orifice. Or both halves of the pair, anyway. Even if one of them didn't have anything to do with the baby making process..."

"Hell, the rest of the family is usually there too. It's like a big huge 'shoving miniature humans out of vaginas' party. Shit's a big deal."

He looks at you with one of the most disturbed looks you've ever seen on his face. 

"You're being a jackass right now and it's not fucking necessary," he spits out. 

You sigh.

"Alright, in this incredibly rare instance, that exhibits a phenomenon that scientists have been looking for for centuries, which they have been, up until now, unable to observe in a natural setting, I am not being a jackass and I'm giving you genuine, unironic, straight the fuck up and down, real life information regarding human child-birthing rituals," you say. "I.E., I'm completely serious."

"Humans are disgusting then. That's completely disgusting. You are disgusting," he says. "Auuhgh..." 

His face screws up again and he stiffens. When he relaxes after what you are assuming is basically a contraction, he leans on the side of the tub with his face in his arm. 

He sits very still and breathes, one hand on the top of his belly. 

"Im gonna throw up," he says, after a stretch of silence.

"Alright, I won't mention any-"

"No, no, I'm actually going to vomit. Like, hand me the trash can, I'm going to be sick immediately," he says urgently.

"Oh."

You rush to grab the waste bin from next to the sink as he tries not to wretch too aggressively. You don't want to clean up puke. You're not about that life. The situation is already a guaranteed mess of various bodily fluids as it is.

You shove the waste bin under his chin and he grabs a hold of it pretty much just in time. He heaves into the bin and you try to get some of his overgrown hair out of his face. 

As he finishes up gagging and his stomach has thoroughly emptied itself of its apparently very minimal contents, he rolls back to his original position and says, "I don't even know if the human baby thing would apply. I don't really think these are exactly my eggs. I don't know what this is." 

You take the bin from him and set it down next to the other end of the tub incase he needs it again. You look at that other egg on the floor again, translucent and deep red.

Right. If trolls don't lay eggs then how did this happen?

You reach over and, hesitating once or twice, pick the thing up very carefully. It feels incredibly delicate.

"Don't touch that. That's gross!" he insists. But, it's already in your hand so there's no way to go back now.

It's warm and slippery still, and it's the last texture you'd ever expect an egg to be. You thought that it would be too soft to pick up, that it'd be like jelly, but it's actually relatively firm. It's more like, rubber, only, more organic feeling. 

But you put it down immediately when you can feel whatever is inside of it moving slightly under your fingertips whenever it decides to twitch. 

"Auugh.... fuck, no. I don't want to do this," he groans. "Fuck. Fuck...." 

You turn your attention back to him, leaving the egg on the floor, and wiping the wet cloth over his forehead again and giving him your hand to hold. 

He sighs hard.

"Ow, god...." 

He still grips your hand like his fingers are made of iron, but this one seems to go a little bit easier with a little less pain. It seems to come out quicker and with less yelling, anyway, so you feel like that's a good indication. 

However, as soon as it's out and he loosens his grip on your hand and sits back to rest a second, he is back to crushing your digits and laying his head on the side of the tub. 

"God, fuck, fuck, fuck..."

In a string of swears and grunts and groans and yelps, he continues on to the fourth immediately after the third. 

You, with your free hand, rub his back and hair and shoulders and that's all you know how to do. "Just breathe, it's okay," you repeat, even though you know that that may not be doing much good. 

"God, god, god, god, fucking fuck, why?!" 

With just a few more growls, he manages to push the fourth one out. He then dissolves against the tub, the side of his cheek on the porcelain and his horns pushing up against your shoulder. 

He sighs in only momentary relief. 

You pull your phone out of your pocket to check the time. It's been nearly a half an hour since you called. Kanaya should be here soon. You wish she didn't live so far away.

You rub his arm and shoulder. 

You take a second, in the momentary laps of urgency, to glance at the area between his wide-spread legs, which you'd been avoiding this entire time. The cluster of three red eggs is in a small puddle of pink fluids.

You really hope that it's pink because troll body fluids are all tinted weirdly like that and that it isn't because he's bleeding. That's always a hard to distinguish that sort of thing with trolls. 

His belly also doesn't look any smaller so you don't know how much progress has been made here. It doesn't seem like there could be that many more, though. 

You can still vaguely see a little bit of movement if you look close enough. It's not anywhere near as much as before, but you can see a tiny bit. There's a little barely-shifting bump on the side of his belly. 

Suddenly, even as he has his face in his elbow, one of his hands tightens its grip and the other grabs for your wrist. He groans and swears and you watch as another little red sphere forces its way out of his nook. 

That's five so far. 

You hear a knock on the door and your heart floods with a desperate kind of relief. 

"Hold on sec," you say to Karkat as you pull your hand out of his grip.

He just grunts in response, his head still buried in his arms. 

You get up and walk into the small living area and make your way to the door as the knocking continues. You open the door and greet Kanaya in a haste. 

"Hey," you say. 

"Hello," she says, taking off her jacket. "Sorry I took so long. What's going on? Are you both okay? You seemed rather horrorstruck." 

She lays her jacket over the back of a chair and adjusts her sweater. Then she takes off her boots and puts them politely next to the door. 

"I'm fine. Karkat's like, um..." you begin. How do you break this kind of thing to someone? How do you explain this? "Karkat's not fine. However, the mystery of his weird-as-fuck sudden weight gain has been solved, if that's any consolation to the phantasm that has just unleashed itself onto this glorious thursday night." 

"Would you be willing to fill me in on exactly what all of that means?" she says.

"Well, I'm trying to figure out how to say this properly, and part of me is thinking that I should probs just show you what's going down, but the other part is thinking that that's not really a thing you want to just waltz into," you say. "So uh, basically, Karkat's, like, so... Karkat's, apparently... There are eggs. A lot of eggs."

Her brow scrunches up and she eyes you confusedly.

"...Eggs?"

"Yes."

"What does that mean?" 

"It means that the dude somehow ended up full of eggs and has now been charged with the unfortunate task of getting them out of his body," you say. 

She eyes you strangely and you can't tell if she's shocked or disbelieving. She walks right past you, though, silently, to the bathroom door, where you can hear muffled smatterings of Karkat's pained moaning. 

She puts her hand on the doorknob and hesitates to turn it for several held breaths before she finally cracks the door open. She peers around the barely open door at first before opening the door all the way. 

"Karkat?"

Then she walks into the bathroom and you follow her. 

There is then an approximate thirty second period in which she is talking to him, asking him a lot of questions, "What the hell is this?" "When did this start?" "Why didn't you say anything?" "Have you known about this?" "How long have you been lying here?" "Have you had anything to drink?" "Dave, get a glass of water!"

You do as she tells you and go to the kitchen to start looking through his cabinets, which you find to be almost entirely empty, with the sink piled full of dirty dishes. All of his dishes are dirty. 

You carefully dig a glass out of the pile and you wonder how long this has been here and what he's been doing in regards of food for the past week. He completely stopped talking, being on any social network site, or answering messages about a week previous to this. 

You wash off a single glass when you find one. 

You go to the fridge to check to see if he has a pitcher or if he just drinks straight tap water. When you open it, the thing is emptier than your fridge at your apartment and that is saying something. 

Theres a bag of bread with just the heels left and a cup of take-out sauce packets and a few containers of ambiguous leftovers and oh good he does at least have a pitcher. 

You bring a glass of water to the bathroom. 

In the time that takes you, you return to Kanaya helping him out of the tub and him insisting that he's fine and doesn't need sopor it's find it'll be fine I don't want to move. She responds by telling him that sopor is incredibly important and that he needs to get out of the tub and that it'll only take a second and that he'll feel better if she just lets her do what she's trying to do.

She eventually get's him out of the tub, with much struggling on his part, and you are there for him to lean on for a moment.

There are cardboard boxes on the counter that remind you of detergent boxes and you recognize them as sopor mix immediately. Kanaya takes the eggs and pillow out of the tub and turns on the water.

All of Karkat's weight is on you, as his legs have apparently stopped wanting to support him in his entirety. He is very warm and damp and smells strongly of vomit and whatever other fluids are covering his lower half. You are glad to find that he is still making attempts to breathe evenly. You hand him the glass of water.

The roar of the water flowing into the tub dulls the sound of his moaning a little bit. 

"He just laid one before I got him out so it should give us enough time to fill the tub up, hopefully," Kanaya says, testing the water with her wrist one last time before plugging the drain. 

"Are you sure? 'Cause they've been just kind of coming consistently," you say. 

"Um..." 

She doesn't respond properly and starts pouring sopor mix into the tub. 

Karkat takes a drink from the glass. "It's fine. I can wait. It won't take that long to fill a tub. It'll be fine. I can do it." 

"I don't know that you have that much control over the eggs, but I applaud your determination," Kanaya says. 

Once she's poured a sufficient amount of sopor mix and the contents of the tub has turned swirling green, she comes over to check him over more properly. Her hand presses onto his belly and he protests only mildly, probably mostly out of shock. 

She starts out by laying her palms flat on the curve of it, and moves onto putting pressure onto certain spots. You are still confused as to why he is still completely huge when so many eggs have already been pushed out.

"Hmm..." she says. "There can't be many more... Which is good for many reasons, as I'm sure you're quite exhausted. However, I can't imagine what we'd do if many more grubs were produced. I don't even know what's to be done with the seven you already have." 

"Grubs?" Karkat says. "Uh, yeah, no. Dude, okay, I'd think you of all people would get that this is some kind of parasite or something. These aren't grubs. That isn't possible." 

She takes her eyes off of his belly momentarily to look him in the eyes. Very earnestly, she says, "Karkat, I grew up with a mothergrub as a lusus. I am a jadeblood. I know what our eggs look like." 

He stares at her. "Yeah but, I'm not a mothergrub. How in the most blatant fuck would I be producing grubs?" 

"Karkat, if these were parasites, they'd have just hatched inside of you and your body wouldn't know when or how to get them out," she says. 

He winces and he hisses and his knees buckle slightly, pushing more of his weight onto you. He stiffens for a moment before relaxing again.

"We'll discuss this later. Now is probably not the best time," she says. 

The tub is half full by now anyway. She goes over to turn the water off. 

"Just let it set for another minute or so," she says. The mixture is now neon green and lightly glowing. 

She sticks her hand in it to test it and it is still slightly watery. 

The minute that it takes to thicken sufficiently is silent and excruciating. Once it's set, though, Kanaya begins to place the eggs back into the tub and you both try to assist Karkat back in, apparently just in time.

There is one already half out of him, you realize as he takes the step over the side of the tub. He sinks into the sopor very carefully. He exhales in relief as he is finally half-way submerged. 

You can see silhouettes of his body and the eggs underneath the surface. His knees and the top of his belly still stick up from the slime, though, which is unavoidable. 

His relief is only short-lived, though, as that egg must finish coming out immediately. His face screws up as he pushes it the remainder of the way out.

The rest of the eggs are laid with significantly less pain than the first seven. Of course, they do not come without effort, but he is no longer in such horrendous pain. You stroke his hair and continue to try to provide comfort when he needs it. 

By the end, though, regardless of the decrease in pain, most likely due to the sopor, he is exhausted and limp and you both try multiple times to get him to drink the glass of water. He'll always take a small sip and then give it back. 

"You really need to be hydrated," Kanaya says. "I mean, don't drink it too fast, of course, but it'll help you feel better."

Kanaya stops counting the number of eggs out loud after nine, but you're sure he's aware of how many there are. You try to swallow how appalled you are by the number, but you feel sick every time you think about it. Especially because you now know that these are grubs.

How he ended up pregnant, you'll have to deduce later. Right now, though, you are left with a very limp, completely exhausted, and dehydrated Karkat and eleven potential grubs.

You wait about fifteen minutes after the last one before calling it done. During that time, Karkat passes out, or comes close to it. His eyes shut and his breathing evens out naturally and his posture sinks. You and Kanaya both slump in relief, all of the tense concentration built into the both of your muscles flooding out in a sigh and a silent "Thank God."

It's not complete relief, though, as you are both still suspicious that the only reason its stopped is because he fell asleep, as well as worried about how long he will be unconscious. What if he passed out from bleeding? He didn't seem to be bleeding too much, miraculously, but what if something hemorrhaged that you can't see? What if something went wrong? What if he's not okay?

"Dave?" Kanaya says. "Do you know anything at all about this situation that I do not?"

You just shake your head tiredly. "I dunno. What do you know about this situation?"

She leans back further against the wall. 

"I know that we have been aware of it for three months. I know that these are troll eggs. I know that there are eleven of them," she says. "I do not know who contributed genetics to the brood. I do not know how he is capable of carrying and delivering eggs. I do not know when this started, exactly." 

You try to think that over for a second. Has it been longer than three months?

"I know he started gaining weight noticeably three months ago. Before that, though, I remember he went through about a month of having a mysteriously long-lasting stomach bug," you say. "He was really tired through that whole thing. Like really tired. Like he passed out on more than one occasion. I thought it was just 'cause he was sick, though."

Kanaya nods. 

"Did anything happen before that?" 

You stare at the sink and notice for the first time that the faucet is dripping. 

"Uhm..." you say. "I mean, actually, that was right after the first time we did like, actual regular 'sex' sex. But, humans and trolls can't like, reproduce together, can they? Like, like, that's not possible." 

You feel slightly sicker.

Her eyes are wide.

"We'll have to get Karkat's side from this before we can decide that, but if you're the only person he's been having any kind of sex with, then I'd say that apparently, they can," she says.

You swallow.

"Oh," is all you can say. 

\--

Be Karkat ==>

You wake up in the bathtub, at first thinking that it had all been a horrible dream, only to discover that, at your feet is a pile of eggs. The only upside to this, in your head, would be that your body would return to its normal shape, but apparently, you cannot have that either. You still look quite bloated. 

It feels weird, though, to be able to lie on your back and not have a huge weight laying on your abdomen. You feel lighter, despite your still apparent tummy. 

You are sore and fatigued and your tongue sticks to the roof of your mouth. You try to move and it just hurts. 

You still force yourself up into a sitting position, regardless. Kanaya and Dave are not in the bathroom with you any longer, so you've probably been asleep for a while. You wonder how long its been. You wonder if they're still here. 

You stretch. 

You are wary of the eggs at the end of the tub, but also, you are very curious. And you want to know how many there are. And you feel like you should make sure they're okay. 

You cautiously, for the sake of your pained body, lean over to the other end of the tub and begin examining the clutch. The clutch that is yours. That are your eggs. That contain your grubs. That are yours. 

That were, until very recently, residing right underneath your skin, underneath your fingertips, in between your hips.

It feels like a too-high wave just crashed over your head.

You stare at them. You count them. You count them again. You count them a third time. And a fourth time. 

That's... That's too many. That's way too many. That's not possible. That's absolutely not possible. 

You pick them up, one at a time, and examine each of them. They fit perfectly in your hand and are incredibly warm. 

How did this thing that you thought was a deadly illness produce such an unexpected and somehow more problematic outcome? 

You swallow.

You examine each of them very carefully. You notice two, no wait, three, that are missing the little shadow of a grub inside. You know that that means that there are less to take care of, but your heart still sinks like lead. 

No, no, it sinks more than that. It sinks and crashes into your gut and you feel like you'll be sick and you went through all of that, you went through all that hell, and three of them, wait, wait, wait, no, no, oh no, that's not fair that's not fair, no no no, four of them are already void of hope. 

Did you do something wrong? Oh, well, fuck that thought, of course you did something wrong. If you had actually known what was going on then there would've been a thousand things you could've not done wrong. 

You suddenly whine, very loud and high pitched, and fall forward until you are leaning on the cold wall of the ablution trap. Your shadow blankets the little red spheres and you hold one of the empty ones in your hand and you don't even know what to do with the rest of them. What do you do with grubs? What on earth do you do with grubs?

Seven grubs. What do you do with seven grubs?

What do you do? What do you do? What do you do?

Your whole body feels like stone and you don't think you'll ever be able to get up again. You think you'll just be too heavy forever.

The door clicks open. 

"Oh, shit, you're awake." 

You glance to the side and Dave walks in, barefoot and disheveled. 

You are slightly embarrassed. It's not as though he hasn't seen every single part of you before, but that wasn't a way you'd ever envisioned him to see your nook. 

He sits down next to the tub. He doesn't do a single thing for a few seconds, just rubs the back of his hair. He doesn't say anything. You don't move either. 

Then he pulls you into the closest thing you can get to an embrace with the wall of the tub separating you. You press your face into his chest and the softness of his shirt and you feel him rest his head on top of yours. 

It's sort of awkward, because your body is also pressing against icy porcelain and you're getting sopor slime all over him, but you welcome it anyway. He kisses your temple. 

He lets go and you want to get out of this tub and have that comfort properly. You make an attempt to stand and it hurts absolutely everything. 

You push yourself up, though. 

"Dude, just sit. Maryam says you should chill for a while. Also I say that too. Everyone says that. The majority vote says you should chill," Dave says. 

"No, I want to get up," you insist. "This sopor is gross and filthy anyway." 

You push yourself up until you're standing and lean on the wall for support. 

"Okay, but only to lie down somewhere else," he says. "For real. You're sorta kinda fucked up right now. You've gotta just relax for a while." 

"I will, just, get me a towel. I've got to get out of this shit," you say. 

He gets the towel off of the back of the door and hands it to you. You wrap yourself up in it and he helps you get out of the tub. You are very careful with your feet as you step onto the floor, and nearly slip on the second step. 

You peel off your gross, sopor-soaked shirt, letting it drop to the floor in a wet splat, and towel yourself off. You really need a shower, but that space is now occupied. You are also now naked and still weird-shaped in front of him and don't really think it'll ever matter again. You wrap yourself up in the towel.

"Can you get me more clothes?" 

"They're on the counter already," he says, smugly. 

They're folded up neatly next to the sink. 

"Oh, fuck you. Thanks," you say. "Really, though, thank you." 

"It's cool," he says. 

You grab them and put them on once you've sufficiently wiped the sopor off of your skin. You still feel sticky and achy, but it's better than being coated in sludge. 

You go and lie down on the futon in the living room, which has already been pulled out into a bed and covered in blankets. but not initially for you. It's apparent that at least Dave has been sleeping on it. 

"How long was I asleep?" you ask as you gently lower yourself onto it. 

"Oh, you know, just about 24 hours, now," he says.

You lie on your side. Futons are not comfortable. 

"Fuck," you say. "You left me in that shitty tub for 24 hours?" 

He shrugs. "We didn't want to move you. You seemed content. I dunno." 

You groan softly. You're still tired. Your eyes shut. 

He sits down on the edge of the futon and runs his hands through your hair. 

"Kanaya went to get dinner," he tells you. "She did your dishes for you, though. And restocked your fridge a little bit. Also I hope you don't mind that we've been pretty much camping out here since yesterday." 

You enjoy his fingers running through your hair and over your scalp. It's so soothing and that's really all you want right now is soothing.

"It's fine. You guys didn't have to buy me food, though. Fuck. How much money do I owe you?" you say. 

"Don't worry about that," he says. "I'm really serious, don't." 

He crawls over you and onto the futon, painfully careful not to hurt you. He lies down next to you and wraps his arms around you. 

"Dude, I'm not letting you guys pay for my groceries," you say. 

"Do you have the money right now? And are you in the condition to work?" he says. 

"No, but, still, I'll pay you back later," you say.

"It wasn't a lot of money," he insists. "It's a present. Because you deserve presents. Because you're awesome and have had a shitty couple months that ended in the shittiest way possible. Merry Shitty Christmas." 

You sigh. 

"Just don't think about it right now. Don't worry about anything yet. We've got time to wait for you to feel better and then figure it out," he says. "Don't worry about the eggs yet. Kanaya says they won't hatch for another four months. Just chill for now. Everything's gonna be fine." 

You soak up the warmth of his embrace and try to follow that advice. That seems like a lot of time but you know it'll feel like nothing when it gets here. You tell yourself that you're content to just lay there with him, because Gods know that that's all you really do want to do. 

You just feel like you should be figuring out what to do. 

"What's dinner?" you ask, suddenly very aware that your stomach is working on gnawing its way out of your rib cage. 

"Well, we ordered takeout, but you weren't awake yet so, you can have half of my rice if you want. Or we can order more. Or we might be able to make you something. Whatever you want," he says. 

"Alright," you say. 

There's a long stretch of comfortable silence, in which all that you feel is the heat of his body and the rise and fall of his ribs as he breathes. You still ache and you'd kind of like some kind of pain reliever, but you still somehow feel more comfortable than you have in months. 

"Kat?" he says suddenly.

"Uh huh?" you manage, not realizing you're almost asleep again.

"Are uh, those eggs... Are they mine?" he asks.

You blink. You're not sure what that means. 

"Yours how?" you ask.

"Like, did you have sex with someone else or was I the other half of the baby-making-process?"

You pause. You roll over to face him. He looks so concerned. You feel a little like he doesn't trust you. 

"I'd tell you if I had a kismessis and I don't so yes, of course, they're 'yours' in that sense, if that is a sense to be had," you say. 

He takes a second to think and then he just nods. 

You roll back over.

"Also, four of them didn't develop right or something," you say. "So there's only seven."

It takes him a second.

"Oh," he says.

You sigh again and swallow.

"I don't know what to do," you say without thinking. 

He holds you tighter and kisses your neck. 

"Worry about it later," he says. 

"I guess."

Kanaya returns with food about five minutes later. You end up eating most of Dave's rice, but they bought he bought such a ridiculous amount of other food that you're not sure how guilty you feel. There's still a lot of left overs. 

The three of you end up ignoring the television for hours and you pass out at odd intervals, until you fall asleep completely and they sleep on either side of you.


End file.
